We have often heard about some communities saying that, “reservation should be on Income Basis.”
When I think of this fact sometimes I am in favour of it but sometimes not. Why not? There is a strong reason behind it. Let me tell you about my personal experience at 20 years age. In our generation, there are still some people who always try to focus on which community you belong. I am sharing one of my experiences here; although my intention is not to hurt any community or humiliate it.
After my Diwali holidays, I was returning to my college in train. Beside my seat there was the reservation of one highly educated and experienced advocate of Allahabad High Court and he belonged to an upper caste. I introduced myself. But like my father, I don’t have a surname. We moved on to talking about our life experiences and various topics of the society, the on going political scenario etc. The conversation was going well. But suddenly, he asked me about my caste. This was totally shocking for me that still in today’s world there exist these kinds of people who do not focus on your talent or you ability to hold a conversation. But intead, all they care about is your caste. I told him as to which caste I belong. Finally the conversation moved forward and as someone from a lower caste, can we only expect so much progress? I felt he was jealous of how far we had come! Such scrutiny was not new for me but I was shocked to hear those words from an educated man. People still judge you on the basis of your caste and it is dissapointing.
The day when upper caste people will stop saying that, “Hey this belongs to that community or caste,” on the same day I will start supporting economical reservation. And the major cause why casteism prevails is the constant saying, “Hey he belongs to that community.” That’s why Yadavs vote for a Yadav, Muslims for a Muslim candidate, Pandits for a Pandit and so on.
We all can do better than that.